Gorham’s Police Chief, Christopher Sanborn, believes that the United States is facing a national mental health crisis. The Gorham Police Department is working diligently in an attempt to avoid a mass shooting such as the recent one in Lewiston in which 18 people were killed by a mentally ill man with a semi-automatic rifle. A major part of the Department’s response is increased training in how to look for red flags, how to respond, and how to identify active shooter situations. Gorham has policies in place to address these issues and plans on how to respond.

The Gorham Police Department is a member of a County-wide training group that conducts regional training in response to these types of incidents. The Cumberland County Emergency Management Agency is a member of this group and a resource for assistance with these training sessions. They are working on securing a grant for funding for training geared to addressing response to active assailant situations. The first stage of the training will begin in February addressing initial response to a potential mass shooting.

There are also plans for all of the stakeholders (law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical service, public works, and possibly including city and school administrators) to meet and conduct a tabletop exercise to lay out potential scenarios and instructions, as well as having groups play out responses followed by discussions to evaluate how these responses worked. Finally, there will be a full-scale active assailant training exercise conducted.

Officers need both training and resources to identify those who need help and to utilize community resources to obtain mental health services. Gorham and Windham currently share a mental health liaison who is called upon to evaluate people who have come to the attention of the Police Department as potentially being in need of mental health evaluation and/or services.